História mais antiga a mencionar a gravidade da superfície diferente na Lua

1827: Uma Viagem à Lua, um romance de George Tucker, Disponível em Projeto Gutenberg.

All bodies are much lighter on the moon than on the earth; by reason of which circumstance, as has been mentioned, the inhabitants are more active, and experience much less fatigue in ascending their precipitous mountains. I was astonished at first at this seeming increase in my muscular powers; when, on passing along a street in Alamatua, soon after my arrival, and meeting a dog, which I thought to be mad, I proposed to run out of his way, and in leaping over a gutter, I fairly bounded across the street. I measured the distance the next day, and found it to be twenty-seven feet five inches; and afterwards frequently saw the school-boys, when engaged in athletic exercises, make running leaps of between thirty and forty feet, backwards and forwards. Another consequence of the diminished gravity here is, that both men and animals carry much greater burdens than on the earth.

1638: O Homem do Moone, um romance de Bispo Francis Godwin, Disponível em Projeto Gutenberg.

The manner of our Travel to the Palace of Pylonas was more strange and incredible than any thing we have related, for at our first setting forth there were delivered to each of us two Feather Fans, like those our Ladies in Spain cool themselves with in Summer: You must understand, that the Globe of the Moon has likewise an attractive Power, yet so much weaker than the Earth, that if a Man do but spring upward with all his Strength, as Dancers do in shewing their Tricks, he will be able to mount fifty or sixty Foot high; and being then above all Attraction from the Moon's Earth, he falls down no more, but by the Help of these Fans, as with Wings, they convey themselves in the Air in a short Space, (though not quite so swift as Birds) whither they please. In two hours Time (as I could guess) by the Help of these Fans, we were carried through the Air those five Leagues, in all about sixty Persons.

Se a gravidade do bispo Godwin não estiver correta, dê uma folga nele, pois ele escreveu essa história antes do nascimento de Isaac Newton.

Aqui está uma resposta parcial para minha própria pergunta:

A resposta de Zeiss Ikon diz que havia uma gravidade mais baixa na Lua em Heinlein. Tenha traje espacial, viajará (1958).

No filme, Destination Moon (Agosto, 1950) (cópia):

Doc, I'll never get use to this.

This must weigh 500 or 600 pounds!

On Earth it does. Gravity here

is about 1/6 as much.

That means things weigh 1/6 as much.

I know it, but I can't believe it.

Por coincidência, o comentário de marecllothearcane diz:

Destination Moon (the Tintin comic), published 30 March 1950, shows lower surface gravity on the moon.

O comentário de Drewbenn sobre The Moon Maid (1926)

The Moon Maid, available through Project Gutenberg, is easy to check, and the characters are well aware of it: "...the natural effects of the lesser gravity of the Moon. We have discussed the matter upon many occasions... yet when we faced the actual condition we gave it no consideration whatsoever. Of course, it's in the context of jumping over a river. So you can remove everything in your question that comes after that

HG Wells Os primeiros homens na lua (1900,1901) O capítulo 9, "Prospecção começa", em Projeto Gutenberg, diz:

As he stepped forward he was refracted grotesquely by the edge of the glass. He stood for a moment looking this way and that. Then he drew himself together and leapt.

The glass distorted everything, but it seemed to me even then to be an extremely big leap. He had at one bound become remote. He seemed twenty or thirty feet off. He was standing high upon a rocky mass and gesticulating back to me. Perhaps he was shouting—but the sound did not reach me. But how the deuce had he done this? I felt like a man who has just seen a new conjuring trick.

In a puzzled state of mind I too dropped through the manhole. I stood up. Just in front of me the snowdrift had fallen away and made a sort of ditch. I made a step and jumped.

I found myself flying through the air, saw the rock on which he stood coming to meet me, clutched it and clung in a state of infinite amazement.

I gasped a painful laugh. I was tremendously confused. Cavor bent down and shouted in piping tones for me to be careful.

I had forgotten that on the moon, with only an eighth part of the earth’s mass and a quarter of its diameter, my weight was barely a sixth what it was on earth. But now that fact insisted on being remembered.

Portanto, a pesquisa deve incluir exemplos publicados em ou antes do 1900.

[Adicionado 08-04-2019. Edgar Allen Poe's A aventura inigualável de um Hans Pfaall, publicado na 1835, é mencionado como uma possibilidade por Sean Condon em sua resposta, embora ele estivesse um pouco incerto sobre como interpretar as palavras de Poe.

Conheci outro trabalho de Poe, publicado anos depois, que é um pouco mais específico sobre a gravidade lunar, "Mellonta Tauta" publicado em O Livro de Ladys de Godey, Fevereiro, 1849 e supostamente escrito em 2848, que inclui este parágrafo:

April 7.—Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had a fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much interest the putting up of a huge impost on a couple of lintels in the new temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think that creatures so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so little resemblance to humanity, yet evinced a mechanical ingenuity so much superior to our own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the vast masses which these people handle so easily, to be as light as our own reason tells us they actually are.

A última frase parece estar se referindo à menor gravidade superficial na Lua.

É claro que isso pode não importar, já que a resposta do user14111 menciona duas histórias anteriores que mostram pessoas pulando longas distâncias na gravidade lunar mais leve.

Eles são Uma Viagem à Lua, por George Tucker (1827) e O Homem do Moone, do Bispo Francis Godwin (1638). Sim, 1638. Como o user14111 diz, Godwin exagerou a diferença na gravidade da superfície, mas pode ser perdoado desde que ele escreveu antes do nascimento de Isaac Newton.

É possível que o user14111 tenha encontrado o exemplo mais antigo, mas não totalmente certo.

Um bom candidato a ser o primeiro trabalho de ficção científica a mencionar a menor gravidade superficial da Lua seria Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Somnium.

Somnium (Latin for "The Dream") is a novel written in 1608, in Latin, by Johannes Kepler. The narrative would not be published until 1634 by Kepler's son, Ludwig Kepler. In the narrative, an Icelandic boy and his witch mother learn of an island named Levania (our Moon) from a daemon. Somnium presents a detailed imaginative description of how the Earth might look when viewed from the Moon, and is considered the first serious scientific treatise on lunar astronomy. Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov have referred to it as one of the first works of science fiction.[1]

Somnium began as a student dissertation in which Kepler defended the Copernican doctrine of the motion of the Earth, suggesting that an observer on the Moon would find the planet's movements as clearly visible as the Moon's activity is to the Earth's inhabitants. Nearly 20 years later, Kepler added the dream framework, and after another decade, he drafted a series of explanatory notes reflecting upon his turbulent career and the stages of his intellectual development. The book was edited by Ludwig Kepler and Jacob Bartsch, after Kepler's death in 1630.

Desde Somnium foi escrito em etapas, pode ser incerto precisamente quando vários detalhes sobre a Lua foram incluídos pela primeira vez, mas foi publicado quatro anos antes do livro de Godwin.

Portanto, há uma questão factual sobre se Somnium menciona menor gravidade superficial na Lua e uma questão mais subjetiva se alguém considera Somnium ser um dos primeiros trabalhos de ficção científica.

Se a resposta para ambas as perguntas for afirmativa, deve haver apenas algumas histórias anteriores de viagens à Lua, de volta às de Lucien. História veridica, considerar como possíveis candidatos.]

Um caso plausível, porém confuso, poderia ser apresentado para A aventura inigualável de um Hans Pfaall, de Edgar Allan Poe, publicado na 1835.

O trabalho descreve um aventureiro viajando para a lua usando um balão de ar quente personalizado. Poe considera diretamente a gravidade variável da lua, deixando-a como uma questão em aberto (da perspectiva do explorador), se difere da Terra:

I could not be positive either about the gravitation or the atmospheric density of the moon.

Lendo nas entrelinhas sua discussão sobre a "atmosfera" da lua revela suposições sobre sua gravidade:

In the earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of a passage to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an atmosphere dense in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had entered largely into my calculations.

Como a formação de uma atmosfera depende muito da gravitação de um corpo, isso implica que Poe estava assumindo que o tamanho menor da lua levaria a uma gravidade mais fraca do que na Terra.

A linguagem arcaica e não científica e as teorias menos plausíveis em outras partes do roteiro (uma fraca atmosfera solar etérea que se estende além de Vênus, por exemplo) tornam o texto difícil de interpretar, mas certamente é um exemplo muito antigo se aplicável!

Posso dar o pior exemplo: a persistente redução da gravidade foi parte de como Kip Crawford decidiu que ele estava, de fato, na Lua depois de ser sequestrado. Tenha traje espacial, viajará (Heinlein, 1958). Heinlein entendeu errado a gravidade da superfície de Plutão mais tarde no mesmo livro, mas, naquela época, Plutão não era mais do que um ponto nos melhores telescópios que existiam, então ninguém tinha certeza de seu tamanho ou composição (não importa pensar que tivesse quatro luas).